


driver's license

by thatoneinsecurenerd



Series: driver's license [1]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Human, Angst, Break Up, Falling Out of Love, Heartbreak, Implied/Referenced Cheating, M/M, Morality | Patton Sanders Angst, Past Relationship(s), Songfic, but not really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-16
Updated: 2021-01-16
Packaged: 2021-03-14 10:00:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28793568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatoneinsecurenerd/pseuds/thatoneinsecurenerd
Summary: Patton and Roman were happy. Until they weren’t. Until, no matter how hard Patton fought to keep them together – hurt himself to keep them together – Roman finally ended things, leaving Patton hurting, while Roman seemed to be thriving with a new boy, as if Patton had never really meant anything to him.Inspired byDriver’s License – Olivia Rodrigo
Relationships: Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders/Morality | Patton Sanders
Series: driver's license [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2197323
Comments: 8
Kudos: 17





	driver's license

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this over the past couple days, and apparently, I'm a huge sucker for Patton angst. You should also really check out the song this is inspired by (if you haven't already heard it).

High school was a time for growth. It was a time for really cementing one’s ideals and one’s passions. It was the first step on a long road to the rest of one’s life – whether that life entailed college, a job, and/or a family. 

Patton Morale, on some level, knew all this. But for him, high school was a chance to make new friends, to learn so many new things. It was a time to form bonds with teachers and other students. And, in his sophomore year of high school, it was a time to experience fully loving another person. Imagining that future teachers that were always talking about but with someone else at his side. 

It was seeing each other through milestones. It was looking forward for the ones to come. 

It was spending their evenings on FaceTime, doing homework and knowing that all they had to do was look up and see their studious boyfriend. Give a little giggle and catch his eyes or the upward quirk of his pretty pink lips. 

It was texted “I love you’s” and white-knuckled grips on hands in public that meant, “I don’t want to ever let you go and risk losing you.” 

It was not even fathoming the possibility that maybe – just maybe – they weren’t meant to spend the rest of their lives together, that only 2% of high school relationships lasted forever, and there was a much greater chance that they fell into the 98%. 

Patton was always a happy person. He’d always been a little naïve. Quite innocent. But he wasn’t oblivious. 

He could tell when his sweet-as-candy relationship began to turn a little sour. When the love of his life wasn’t so easily cooled by him after a moment during which he’d lost his temper. When the grip on his hand loosened and his beloved’s eyes strayed away from his face in the middle of a conversation during lunch in the drama teacher’s classroom. (A common hangout for the drama kids and their significant others during lunch, for the drama kids could run their lines or get help from the drama teacher with some aspect of the upcoming performance. The teacher didn’t mind their occasional rowdiness. Patton had been welcomed with open arms, the first time he’d walked in on his boyfriend’s arm.) 

His boyfriend. Roman Prince. A literal Prince Charming. 

As soon as Roman had learned to drive, gotten his license, he drove Patton everywhere. Drove him to and from school. Drove him out on dates to the little ice cream shop in downtown or to Patton’s parents’ bakery for work. 

He ran his lines for Patton, gleefully kissing him after a successful rep. He wrote songs about their relationship and performed them for Patton at the piano in the school’s music room, when no one else was around. 

In the later stages of their relationship, no one else was ever around. They stopped frequenting the music room and the drama classroom. They stopped visiting the ice cream shop. Roman stopped kissing him goodbye in the car outside his parents’ bakery. 

Their video calls decreased in frequency. Roman was suddenly always busy. 

Patton knew someone else had caught Roman’s eye. He wasn’t blind. (Well, he was, and he wore glasses for it, but that’s not what he meant.) He’d just thought Roman might have had the decency to break it off with him. 

But Roman didn’t. And so, Patton tried to keep their relationship together. 

He knew they weren’t perfect, but god, he loved Roman. He couldn’t imagine a life with anyone _but_ Roman at his side. 

He reached out to Roman even when Roman didn’t reciprocate. He gave him goofy smiles that didn’t reach his eyes, and Roman said nothing. 

It was draining to Patton, but he _loved_ Roman. Roman was his first love. He imagined that Roman would always be his _only_ love. 

_And love was supposed to hurt, right?_ He would endure the hurt for the love of his life. For the rest of his life. 

Until Roman finally called it quits. Said things weren’t working. As if he’d just realized it, while Patton had known for months. 

Patton had tried to fight for them, but Roman wouldn’t hear it. Roman was stubborn. And Roman had fallen out of love with him. 

Roman had fallen out of love with Patton a long time ago, pushed him out of his heart. Probably replaced him with that pretty, blond, senior boy in the drama club. Patton had always noticed their eyes meeting, something flickering between them. And they’d always played each other’s opposites on the stage. 

Patton wouldn’t be surprised if, after he and Roman broke things off, Roman started dating that pretty, blond boy instead. After all, he was everything Patton wasn’t. 

Patton’s hair was brown. He’d put blonde highlights in it once, but he’d later dyed the highlights baby blue. Now, they were an ugly, faded green. 

He was six months younger than Roman. The pretty blond boy was a whole year and six months _older_. 

The pretty, blond boy was a drama student. A straight-A student. Patton enjoyed working at his parents’ bakery – though he was only allowed to work the register, where he could talk with people, after numerous failed attempts at cooking and baking in their home kitchen. He maintained a B average. 

The pretty, blond boy would probably get on Broadway or go to Hollywood (or both) with Roman. Patton would always stay in their little town. He’d never make it big. 

He would have dropped everything to follow Roman to the ends of the Earth. But Roman finally dropped him. Patton was all alone again. He didn’t know how he’d ever done it before. 

Patton had to try to let go of the future he’d always imagined for them: a little house in a little town like the one they’d grown up in. Of course it was unrealistic, given Roman’s own dreams. But it had always been Patton's fantasy. And for a long time, Roman had been kind enough to entertain it, entertain _him_. 

*** 

After the breakup, Patton had to sit in the passenger seat of his parents’ car and pretend things weren’t entirely different. Pretend that he didn’t have memories with Roman – _tainted by Roman?_ \- in so many of the places they passed by. He had to pretend that he couldn’t see Roman laughing with his drama friends, including the pretty blond boy, who Roman seemed to always have an arm around. He had to deny the ugly swirling in his gut. 

He had to learn to drive, as soon as he was old enough, because his parents couldn’t accommodate for him the same way Roman always had. 

Roman had always wanted him to learn how to drive. Patton had always been a little scared to. 

Roman had wanted Patton to learn how to drive so he could come to him whenever he needed him, just in case Roman didn’t hear his phone ring. 

And now that Patton _could_ drive, he didn’t have anywhere to go. He couldn’t go visit Roman even though his heart felt like it was crumbling in his chest, because _Roman_ was the reason for that. 

Patton only had places to drive by and memories to relive. Memories to feel the bittersweet sting of, over and over again. 

*** 

**_“Guess you didn't mean what you wrote in that song about me_**   
**_'Cause_** ** _you said forever, now I drive alone past your street.”_**

**Author's Note:**

> Anyone want to take a guess as to who the pretty blond boy might be?


End file.
